Thanks to Black Friday, Vinyl Had Its Second-Best Sales Week Since 1991

Even though vinyl retailers were closed on Thanksgiving day, the holiday week was one of the best, sales-wise, for the nation. Thanks to Record Store Day’s annual Black Friday event, Nielsen Music reports that 259,000 vinyl records were sold that week.

That number marks the second-best sales week for vinyl sales since 1991, with the best week coming earlier this year for the April edition of Record Store Day.

Matt Manning, an employee at the Groove, a record shop in East Nashville, told the Tennessean, “It’s just grown exponentially every year -- more releases, more people, people waiting at the door ... it’s a good day. It’s definitely the second-biggest day of the year.”

So what was the top-selling record during the Thanksgiving week? Nielsen claims it was the Beatles’ ‘Long Tall Sally,’ which was an ‘RSD Exclusive Release’ 7-inch. Originally released in 1964, it was the fifth four-song 7-inch EP to be released in the U.K. by the Beatles. Like many of the recent reissues, this EP was available in its mono recording.

Only 7,000 copies were pressed, and Nielsen reports that 5,700 were sold on Black Friday.